Organizations are increasingly reliant upon the performance, security, and availability of networked applications to achieve business goals. At the same time, the growing popularity of latency-sensitive, bandwidth-heavy applications is placing heavy demands on network infrastructures. Further, cyber attackers are constantly evolving their mode of assault as they target sensitive data, financial assets, and operations. Faced with these performance demands and increasingly sophisticated security threats, network equipment providers (NEPs) and telecommunications service providers (SPs) have delivered a new generation of high-performance, content-aware network equipment and services.
Content-aware devices that leverage deep packet inspection (DPI) functionality have been around for several years, and new content-aware performance equipment is coming to market each year. However, recent high-profile performance and security failures have brought renewed focus to the importance of sufficient testing to ensure content-aware network devices can perform under real-world and peak conditions. The traditional approach of simply reacting to attacks and traffic evolution has cost organizations and governments billions. Today's sophisticated and complex high-performance network devices and the network they run on require a more comprehensive approach to testing prior to deployment than traditional testing tools are able to provide. NEPs, SPs, and other organizations require testing solutions capable of rigorously testing, simulating, and emulating realistic application workloads and security attacks at line speed. Equally important, these testing tools must be able to keep pace with emerging and more innovative products as well as thoroughly vet complex content-aware/DPI-capable functionality by emulating a myriad of application protocols and other types of content at ever-increasing speeds and feeds to ensure delivery of an outstanding quality of experience (QoE) for the customer and/or subscriber.
Network infrastructures today are typically built on IP foundations. However, measuring and managing application performance in relation to network devices remain challenges. To make matters worse, content-aware networking mandates controls for Layers 4-7 as well as the traditional Layer 2-3 attributes. Yet, to date, the bulk of the IP network testing industry has focused primarily on testing of Layers 2-3 with minimal consideration for Layers 4-7. Now with the rise of content-driven services, Layers 4-7 are increasingly strategic areas for network optimization and bulletproofing.
Even as NEPs and SPs rush to introduce newer, more sophisticated content-aware/DPI-capable devices to reap the associated business and recreational benefits these products deliver, the testing of these devices has remained stagnant. Legacy testing solutions and traditional testing practices typically focus on the IP network connection, especially routers and switches, and do not have sufficient functionality or capability to properly test this new class of devices. Nor are they aligned with content-driven approaches such as using and applying test criteria using stateful blended traffic and live security strikes at line speeds. The introduction of content-aware functionality into the network drives many new variables for testing that resist corner-case approaches and instead require realistic, randomized traffic testing at real-time speeds. The inability to test this new set of content-aware and software-driven packet inspection devices contributes to the deployment challenges and potential failure of many of them once they are deployed.